JDJ Bumbleschilde
Journal of Bumbleschilde So you think you have problems? There I was, a young adventurous man with romantic and physical yearnings... I had been adventuring perhaps all of three weeks, managing to kill a goblin here and an orc there, making little more profit than I did as the son of a peasant farmer, with far more risk. Then I stumbled over some people leaving these ruins. Hey, I would never have found this place otherwise. The shadowy figures were all dressed like assassins and I knew I was in deep manure. I turned to run but... Next thing I knew I was trussed like a pig ready for the big roast and that Kamenwati whatsit was standing over me gloating. I am NOT admitting that I peed myself, but trust me, that is one fugly face. I looked elsewhere and... uh-oh... I was on an altar. I looked another elsewhere and oh, my Goddess! Kamenwati had a sharp instrument in one boney hand. I barely noticed the vampires standing in the doorway to that room, shrine, temple... whatever. Then he asked what I thought was a really stupid question: "Do you want to live?" Well, hey, I gave the obvious answer. He told me what he wanted of me. He wanted me to be a guardian to a really pretty lady around his "domain", make sure she didn't try to escape, not do... a long list of stuff that I barely paid attention to while trying not to empty my bowels as well as pee myself again... I admit my ears probably pricked forward a little when he got to the part where, if she found me pleasing, I was also to keep her satisfied when he is too busy to do so, if you know what I mean. Was I going to argue while tied up on that fancy altar? Not me! I agreed to the ... assignment. He untied me and lead me to a bedroom, one that was almost a twin to the one I now stand in. This one is just a little more obvious as to what Kamenwati thinks a "turn on" is. The sickness of it... and it never ceases to make me wonder. All that blood, he obviously enjoys the blood. He drinks it, bathes in it. Yet when it goes dark and stale, he has his minions clean it up. And the other bedroom, it was so much like this one, yet so different. I later asked Yolanda why the difference and all she would say was that this bedroom would be more pleasing to Kamenwati and Kemsê Haréré, while the other was primarily for the other wife, Emuishéré. I sometimes wonder if it still is as it once was. Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, Kamenwati was "introducing" Yolanda and I. Me, I was so shaky and wet between the thighs from fright, I did not even think of escape at the time. Her name is... was... Yolanda. And when Kamenwati had said she was really pretty, hey, he was wrong. That woman was beautiful beyond my wildest testosterone driven dreams! He told her I was her new "guardian and part time lover"... She didn't blink an eye, but smiled at me so sweetly my knees finally buckled. She helped me get up as Kamenwati left and took me over to a bathing room... there was a ghostly woman there named Amisi who helped Yolanda clean me up and break me in, if you get my meaning... again. Then Yolanda took me back to that red bed and... started to teach me things that even I had never dreamt of. The little thinking I was thinking between lessons... I figured there has to be a catch, and sure enough... Shoulda, coulda, woulda... the saddest words in the world. I shoulda begged for more time outs so I could think of an escape plan. I coulda maybe gotten away, mayhap both I and Yolanda could have escaped if I had somehow gained her trust, convinced her that I, we, could trick the Undead into ... woulda run for help if ... but, was I thinking? Nah. I was being ridden hard and... Anyway, later, several days later, I was finally begging for a break from those lessons, my health was beginning to suffer. So we sorta toured these ruins. The mummies and skeletons seemed to pretty much ignore us unless we neared that one door and then they would get between that door and Yolanda and me. I figured that door is the way out of here. Told myself I should take the time to make a plan, maybe get Yolanda to plan right along with me if I could get her to trust me. And then she led me back to this room and blew my brains out with another lesson. Only now do I begin to suspect that at least part of her being so avid to "teach" me might have been pure fear. A way to keep her mind off of what Kamenwati would probably do to her someday. It was odd, every once in awhile, when I would beg physical exhaustion, Yolanda would go away for a day or two. I looked for her the first time and found her in yet another bedroom. She awakened and started throwing books and scrolls at me from the small piles of them on and around the bedtables. I threw up my arms in self defense and backed out. Later, when she returned to the red bedroom where we trysted so often, I asked her why she attacked me for entering that other bedroom. Her answer puzzled me at the time, only now do I begin to understand it. She answered: "Because it is the only place HE allows me a little privacy, if I do not stay there long. And it is the one place I can preserve what little innocence I have left." She even spoke of his allowing her to "shop" for the furnishings in it by helping her to use his scrying orb safely. That creature who was once a man does seem to have his moments when he is, in his odd way, rather kind to "his" females. Of course, their being "his" also allows him to think he can do anything he wants with them, whether in a kindly manner or extremely abusive, emotionally or physically. A very stressful situation for the females, I imagine. One wrong move and he can go from nice to nasty in a hot Kamenwati second. Months later, it must have been while I was sleeping, regaining my strength, Yolanda got caught hiding a copy of some book. I didn't know what sort of book, but the manure hit the rotating blades! Not only did Yolanda get dragged before Kamenwati, so did I. In a voice colder than flagstones he gave this long speech about his being disappointed in her and even more so with me, since I was supposed to keep an eye out on her and keep her from doing anything she wasn't supposed to do. I protested that Yolanda kept me so worn out giving me "lessons" in bedding, that I was lucky to have the strength to eat and the time to take a *s__t*. I am pretty sure, considering the end result, that Kamenwati did not empathize with my predicament. He brandished that staff of his in his ever more skeletal hand and in a grim tone told Yolanda that he was going to punish her. I was gagging at the thought of what he might do to her, wondering if I could watch without puking, maybe even throwing in an unmanly fainting... He had so many minions, even if I had a weapon, no way was I going to win a battle with even one or two, let alone the bunch of them, considering the little experience I had. Did he punish Yolanda? Yeah, but not the way I expected. He slammed ME on one of those altars and with a short ceremony consisting of the magic words: "Too bad, you might have made a useful offering one day...", he slit my throat and the vampires gathered for the feast. As you see me, so I found myself here later. I have no idea how I became as I am now. Yolanda was here, weeping on that bed and saying how sorry she was about what had been done to me. Like an idiot, I comforted HER. She finally, eventually, told me a little of what it had been like for her. You know what? At that time, it did not seem to matter all that much. None of it. A little late for me, I finally talked with her about trying to escape. As she told me the many ways she had tried and failed, I quickly discovered that I was and am somehow chained to this room and its bed. Yolanda tried to help me leave the room at least with the little she knew of various magics, but to no avail. Being a wraith has its drawbacks, we did not find a way for me to again please her on that red bed, which makes me wonder how that ghostly female in the bath area manages. She did at least sort of keep me company over the next year or three. (It is hard to keep track of time when you become an Undead, don't you know?) We spoke of many things... well, she did anyway, it was not as though I had a lot to tell at that time. She told me the little she knew of Kamenwati and his obsession with Kemsê Haréré and Emuishéré. I think my vocabulary improved some listening to Yolanda. I no longer sound like the son of a peasant farmer. She even taught me to read and write which helped to pass the time for awhile. She had a bit of talent with magics of some sort and helped me to become able to manipulate items on my plane of origin while alive, as long as they are not very heavy. Finally, she failed to return. Either she escaped, which is unlikely, or Kamenwati did something to her along the lines of what he did to me. I talked one of the vampires into bringing me tomes and books from that library. The vampire eventually told me I had read enough and never returned. So much for making Undead pals. So then, most of the time, I was and am bored beyond belief, unable to go beyond this room, let alone escape. I heard from some adventurers that someone built a palace near these ruins and that a Druid had made some sort of transition to enter here. Purely speculation, but the primary theory is that the Druid was trying to find the source of some Undead invasions in a nearby grove. What a fool! My first thought on tha? I bet he ended up on a spike or one of those altars for his troubles. Now adventurers wander through more and more often. They sometimes pause to question me and once in awhile I glean information from them. For instance, the owners of the palace are embarrassed at the situation. They try to keep people out of here while they figure out how to permanently deal with these "ruins" and the inhabitants thereof, though I also hear that the rumors about this area are spreading in spite of the owners efforts. I hear they spent a great deal of time, items and gold on that palace. Even if they destroyed the hugely expensive palace, these ruins and Kamenwati would still be here. My thouht is that at least with that transition in place, there is the chance, however slight, that the "problem" might be permanently solved or eradicated. Unfortunately, I think these ruins, along with its occupants, could not be destroyed for any length of time. Once in awhile, some adventurers manage to wreak total havoc here, yet this area returns to what it was before they came and did their worst. A little pocket of hell in the plane of what some call "normal" existence. I wish I understood how the multiverses actually work, it might assist me in wording this better. I used to hope that someday, someone really valiant would put an end to this cycle of horror, permanently. Now I think it will never really end and I am not even sure that I want it to. It used to be seldom, now fairly often... people come through here and ... win some, loose some, but Kamenwati never ceases to return to these ruins and continue his "quest" to bring Kemsê Haréré and Emuishéré back to life. I sometimes wonder how many of the adventurers that have been here end up like me and what percentage just end up as ghosts, mummies, skeletons or more vampires. For all I know, some are turned into rats or wererats. One of those adventurers, on her way through, was asking a lot of silly questions about a rat named Willard. Her theory was that the Druids who opened that transition from the palace to these ruins were changed by magical metamorphosis into a really bad tempered rat and a pig who keep returning to this maze of ruins. Now that would be interesting. I do wish Yolanda had at least found out what the end goal was for that trio of deviants, Kamenwati, Emuishéré and Kemsê Haréré. I even wonder sometimes what started this mess, how did those three get together? If you ever find out the answers to those questions, or even one of them, come tell me, will you? I am not only curious... I am extremely bored. Usually. Is that the shadow of Kamenwati at the door? You will not like what happens next if it is him, I hope that neither will I really, but I have to admit that I will be less bored. - Written by Jeanie D'Jinni